Participatory city development made easy for residents - We Land Ruoholahti invites passersby to give insights

NCC has partnered up with CHAOS to be on pulse of the Ruoholahti residents, frequent area users, and workers to build the most sustainable and innovative business and co-creation hub in Helsinki – We Land. CHAOS supports project’s digitalisation by bringing forward demographics, and citizens’ sentiments.

"We Land will be built to meet the demands of the Ruoholahti residents, including those working in the area and passing by it every day. We wanted to build a house that best serves the demands of working life. Through the partnership with CHAOS we want to get closer to people and open the building to the Ruoholahti community already before the construction starts. This happens by gathering ideas and insights without having to run many large co-creation sessions. It is a way for us to test our own ideas and providing fresh thoughts to nurture our creativity. If you want to have a say, just download the CHAOS crowd app and let us know your needs by answering our surveys or geofencing your idea," says Eelis Rytkönen, Developer-hippie at NCC.

CHAOS crowd is an app where the citizens can provide their insights and answer geofenced surveys. Once a person has downloaded the app and goes by the plot of We Land, a quick survey will pop up. Anyone can also provide their ideas by taking a pic and marking the physical location. The focal idea is to make participatory planning easy and convenient for the citizens.

CHAOS, the party behind project’s digital citizen facilitation, is a Helsinki-based AI company that specialises in urban forecasts and crowd insights. Through CHAOS crowd analytics, NCC is able to track the needs of Ruoholahti users in real time, access the trends within certain demographic groups, and see crowd analytics to base building decisions upon.

“Initiatives such as NCC’s empower the inclusion of citizens into the earlier stages of the urban development chain. The current smart city concept grows from the need to coordinate the multiple dimensions of a city with the help of technology and through the use of data. Citizens’ creativity and insights are one of its most important layers, if not the most important one,” says Paloma Bautista, COO at CHAOS.

“In order to reach the optimal smart city maturity level, both the public and private sector have to advocate for the integration of lean citizen participation processes. This means gathering real-time information from citizens — in an easy and dynamic way — and taking it into consideration in decisions affecting the sustainability and liveability of our cities. Only by understanding our citizens we will get to improve their quality of life,” continues Paloma.

We Land makes Ruoholahti one of Helsinki’s most attractive headquarters’ area transforming it into a vibrant and breathing environment where an inspiring, working, and residential culture is present 24/7. We Land aims for high levels of sustainability, inclusion, service diversity, and connectivity.